


The New Babysitter

by grotesk



Category: Nine Inch Nails (Band)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gender Neutral, M/M, Multi, NIN, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27709121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grotesk/pseuds/grotesk
Summary: Broke and in college, the reader and Trent Reznor find a huge family of kids to babysit to make some money. The reader sees the fatherly instincts in Trent early on.Warnings: All contents of this oneshot are fictional. Fluff and language.
Relationships: Trent Reznor/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	The New Babysitter

There it went.

“Trent!” I called out after hearing another scream of a child needing attention. 

“On it,” he replied shortly, immediately tending to the child. 

I sighed heavily, calming myself down, and turned back to the mission I had set up for myself: I was attempting to cook.

Trent seemed to do this so easily. I was surprised at how he casually and quickly knew what to do. I had always loved kids but never trusted my instincts. I didn’t want to mess up badly. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing or end up hurting feelings without meaning to. I was a timid co-partner. 

Since we were both broke college kids, we had decided to team up as scrawny, makeshift parents and make side money babysitting the kids in town; although, scrawny more so described him. He was short, hair messy and unbrushed, and lost in life. He was a kid trying to live a dream he couldn’t accomplish yet but was working towards which impressed, intrigued, and on the down-low, swooned me. He always rambled to me about how when he was with certain people he just had the purest feeling. Everything was about this purest feeling.

During these babysitting sessions, he was usually in charge of the kids, encouraging me to stop being so afraid but it didn’t always work. I paid attention to every little detail, afraid to fuck anything up whereas he was a go-with-the-flow kind of person. Most of the time this encouragement he had towards me didn’t work at all, and I succumbed to hiding, metaphorically that is, and allowed him to take over the situation as I watched and took mental notes of what to do. He was a good boyfriend; what made him good was his attention to detail and instincts, even if it didn’t seem like it.

Shaking my head and shoving all of these thoughts to the back of my mind, I went back to focusing on the task at hand. I had pulled up a recipe from a handy book I’d come up with over the few sessions of babysitting and what kids liked. It was to be a simple pasta with sauce and a lot of veggies on the side. You could never go wrong with pasta.

This family was particularly large; “a whole herd of bitches,” as Trent had commented when he had gotten off the phone with the parents who were out for the night for a trip to the movies. Trent was taking care of the baby of the bunch while the other kids played around on the game consoles he had set up in the living room. I could feel him watching me from the corner of his eye, making sure I was okay. Which I was. Or I would be, anyway.

I tried fooling him by straightening my back and acting confident. It seemingly laid him off. For now.

I took a good look at the recipe and right as I was about to start cooking, the only daughter out of the bunch ran up to me and started tugging on my shirt, giggling and grinning up at me. 

“Crown! Crown!” she was babbling, showing me the plastic tiara she was gripping as if it were made of gold. She was presenting it to me proudly, holding it out for me to take. She had been babbling about this particular crown all day, so I was assuming it was her thing.

I turned around to look at her and grinned, allowing my scared demeanor to hide behind a mask for right now. 

“Crown? Does our little lady want to be a princess for today?” I laughed, taking the tiara from her hands and placing it on her head perfectly, letting the combed ends gently secure a spot in her hair. 

“Pwincess!” she shouted, her eyes sparkling and rolling up, her head tilted back, attempting to see the crown. 

I smiled at the cute sight and picked her up, holding her with one of my arms secured around her, snaking around her body to make sure I was holding her thigh and she was safe in my hold. 

“You wanna see the crown?” I took a handheld mirror that was lying nearby and held up to her eye level. “Look, a crown! Only the prettiest crown for the prettiest little princess.”

At the sight of the tiara on top of her head, she let out an exasperated gasp, wiggling and squirming in my arm. “Crown! Imma pwincess!” she was shouting at the top of her lungs, the excitement taking over her body. 

I was laughing because of her contagious excitement but made sure she was away from the stove and any sharp objects. I was extra careful when I was handling any of the kids we watched. It was something I was still getting used to.

Seeing she wanted to move around and keep playing, I put down the mirror where it had been before and set her down back to the floor, watching her look at me and twirl herself around in constant circles, her arms stretching across.

“That you are. You’re the little princess around here, aren’t you?” I grinned, looking up at Trent who returned a sheepish smile. The blush creeping onto his cheeks was undeniable.

“The best pwincess!” she leaped with glee, waddling her way towards him. 

With a baby in one arm, he grabbed this excited baby in the other. 

“That’s right,” he said, smiling from ear to ear at the sight of her. “And you’ll forever be the best little princess.”

At the sound of this, she was obviously overwhelmed with joy, considering her hero (who was hero-on-duty for Saturday nights) just said she would be special forever. 

“ME!” she was squealing. 

No matter what Trent said, I knew that somehow, someday he would have his shit together. He was a whole mess and a half, but seeing him so naturally was a pleasant sight to see. 

Trent was laughing more and was letting her play with the crown and grab him by the nose, but eventually, he set her down and let her run off to play with her other siblings; this meant that she would tug on their hair, play with a remote control with no batteries in it, and bug them. I found it amusing yet adorable at the same time. It looked as if they had all learned to get along at the very least. Her brothers were good at watching over her. 

I looked up at Trent after watching her safely make her way to the boys, amazed and angry at myself all at the same time. I wished I wasn’t so awkward and scared, even though I’d done this before with other kids and family members’ kids.

I bit my lip and turned around before he could sense the obvious hurt, but it was already too late. 

“You okay?” he asked gently, walking up to me and standing by my side, looking at me. 

I swallowed and nodded my head, forcing a smile. “I’m okay. I’m just fine.”

His eyes were shiftier than usual, and I could feel his energy change. He cleared his throat to disrupt the silence before it arose. “I think the baby needs to be put to sleep. Little guy keeps shifting around and is hiding from the light. I’ll be back, okay?”

“I’ll be right here,” I replied.

With that, he was gone into one of the many rooms in the house, far away from all the ruckus coming from the main room. 

I wasn’t quite used to the environment of kids just yet. This was more than I had ever had to deal with; I had never had a lot of cousins or siblings. Everything in an environment like this had a time and place with an aura of professionalism attached to it. And on top of all of that, I was no fucking cook.

I sighed and decided to give everything a go, anyway. If not now, when?

After reading the instructions over step-by-step, I chopped up the vegetables one by one and carefully, as to not cut myself. 

It must have taken me an insanely long time to figure out how to cut the vegetables to make a salad and add on top of the pasta later because, by the time I was getting the water ready to boil, Trent returned with a baby monitor but no physical baby. Fast asleep.

“You’re back?” I asked in surprise. 

“Yeah,” he chuckled, leaning on the counter and watching what I was doing. “It only took, like, fifteen minutes. Fifteen or twenty if you want to be precise.”

I nodded my head. 

“Right.”

I wasn’t looking him in the eye anymore, only because I was embarrassed and he could probably tell why I was asking. I looked down and began to fidget slightly, trying to busy myself.

He sighed and placed the baby monitor on the counter where we could both see it then approached me. He stood behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and over my hands, making me place down the utensils I was holding. I did. 

I held my breath as I felt his head rest on my shoulder a little. He was closing his eyes and taking in my scent the way he usually liked to do. It was comforting in the oddest way imaginable. 

I stood still and let go of the tension my body had been holding. I succumbed to his touch, letting my skin feel how tight he was holding me, yet ever so gently and carefully at the same time. His hands had released mine and had gone to hug my torso instead. My eyes were closed at this point.

“You are not bad at this,” he said softly, placing a kiss on my cheek lovingly and slowly, his lips lingering there for a few seconds. 

I sighed and looked down. I didn’t say much but my body’s posture did.

“I promise,” he went on. “After all, she ran up to you. Not me. She doesn’t even know us. It was your energy.”

“I just feel like I suck,” I said defeatedly. I’d been sheltered from so much in my life that I didn’t know how to react and respond to anything. I was introverted and socially awkward. I had no pets growing up. I wasn’t allowed to have a best friend until much later in life, and even then was excluded. I didn’t know how interacting with people worked, let alone your own humans that you’re supposed to raise. Psychotic crap circulating in my brain even though I wanted to be a parent and have my own children someday.

“I don’t think you do,” he said, his arms still around me. He turned me around and made me look at him. He smiled at me lovingly and leaned in to kiss me softly and slowly, his arms not leaving my body. At this point, my arms went around his neck and I kissed him back until he pulled away, pressing his forehead against mine.

Just like this, we stayed for a minute or so. Me leaning against the counter and him holding me softly, my arms around him, just listening to him breathe. 

He was the one to break the position, only to guide me back to the stupid task.

He pulled away and stood next to me, looking down at the setup I had created. 

“It looks like shit, I know. Don’t tell me,” I said, criticizing myself before he could say anything.

He chuckled a bit. “Honestly, this is better than I could ever do. I suck at cooking, too.”

I blinked at him, questioning how that was supposed to help with anything. 

“What I’m trying to say is--” he cleared his throat awkwardly before his voice could crack, his t-shirt fitting loose on him as he readjusted it to get to business, “--everyone has their flaws. We’re not all perfect. I wasn’t born knowing how to be some kick-ass dad. Mine is kick-ass, but I’m not. I wasn’t born knowing how to do anything. It’s stuff you learn over time, you know? You have to learn it in chunks and be patient with yourself. Give it time and have hope.”

“Cheesy,” I teased, tossing the fucked up vegetables I’d chopped up into separate bowls, one for the salad and the other for the pasta.

He rolled his eyes but blushed anyway. 

“Just trying to help,” he mumbled. 

“And you’re right,” I reassured him, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m just teasing. Making light of bad situations.”

His relief was obvious to me then. “Oh, okay. Good. Now let’s attempt to make this.”

And just like that, two clueless people attempted to do the cooking. 

One way or another, we ended up making the meal and had it not be undercooked. For the first time, we didn’t have to resort to ordering pizza from down the street or anything like that. We actually cooked and did it.

As I was washing the dishes, again he came behind me and put his arms around me, holding my waist and kissing the back of my neck lovingly. I was smiling, teeth and all, from ear to ear. “Told you you don’t suck.”

“Oh, stop,” I said embarrassedly. 

He then let go of me and set himself up next to me, grabbing a cloth to dry the dishes and put them away.

“Thank you,” I said happily, seeing he was helping me, which was something I wasn’t used to. 

“Always,” he grinned, kissing my forehead. 

Swiftly, we finished washing the few dishes and turned around to set up the table, but were both shocked to see that all the kids were already sat there, waiting and staring at us.

My face turned immediately red, giving a side glance to Trent.

“Look, they’re married,” one of the kids said. 

I gasped a little bit, giggling with my hand over my mouth as I looked at Trent again. He smiled heartily at the kids, putting his hand around my shoulders as I turned back to look at them.

Not yet, child. We were just stupid college kids trying to get along and get by and live big dreams; bigger than this town and bigger than anything else we had ever seen growing up. 

But Trent was playing along.

“He happy!” one of the daughters piped up again. 

“Very,” he responded, sitting at the table to eat.

Once we all sat down to eat, everything felt at peace. The kids were more well-behaved than most ones we had encountered over our career of babysitting.

I liked to play around with the thought of marriage.

That would be cool.


End file.
